In recent years, direct print processes from removable media have been proposed in the market of digital copying machines. The direct print process is a print mode in which a removable medium that records print data is inserted into a removable media drive unit and the recorded print data are printed at that place.
According to this mode, print processing can be readily done without using any PC wherever a digital copying machine compatible to removable media is equipped (e.g., a digital copying machine in an office, a print shop at a place where one has gone, and the like). In this manner, the print mode in which the user brings a removable media to a place where a digital copying machine is equipped, and prints data at that place is suited to a digital copying machine which uses the electrophotography technique with a short processing time period from the data input until the data output, and is also convenient for the user. Unlike in a conventional print mode in which the user transmits print data from a client PC to a digital copying machine and goes to that digital copying machine for the printed print product, since the print product is printed in user's sight, troubles such as loss of a print product, leakage of a print product to a third party, and the like can be prevented.
However, many recent digital copying machines execute processing after they temporarily save print data in their temporary recording devices (HDD, memory, or the like) upon executing the print processing. For this reason, the temporarily saved print data is left without being erased against user's will. The same problem is posed in the direct print process using removable media, and print data that has undergone the direct print process includes the risk of leakage to a third party.